Ties
by Memphis Lupine
Summary: [References to vol. 16] II: Hao reflects on the matters of Keiko. [Surprisingly non-spoileriffic.]
1. Ties

Continuity: More or less around volume 16. I think. Or, rather, any time during the Shaman Fight.  
  
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Ties  
  
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I know he is by all accounts evil, an undying youth who rises again and again with the same merciless prejudices. He is cruel and impartially hateful toward those who are not shamans; he is a murderer, a deceiver, perhaps even a sadist, and each time he returns from defeat, each time he laughs at death, he grows more clever, stronger. I pray for his destruction and listen endlessly to the gods, hoping to hear of his coming downfall, and yet all the while...  
  
I am, gods help me, proud of him. I must remind myself constantly of his darkness to combat that in me that delights to hear of Hao's triumphs as much as Yoh's. Isn't he clever? I think glowingly as gossip and paper reaches me. My oldest son is so powerful, I continue and then I shake in the dark, feeling somehow torn and as though I am betraying my lazy, beautiful son Yoh. For some reason I feel as though I should not think of Hao as my son.  
  
And why should I not? I carried them both in my womb, sang and talked to them both, imagining worlds of beauty and strength for the tiny boys slowly growing within my flesh, even as I knew he was becoming human from my strength. I loved Hao and Yoh in a way I could not explain to Mikihisa, feeling a deep connection to the gathering life that was dependent entirely on me, that was part of me. Even the gods have not been able to create that peaceful state of a looping cycle, my blood to theirs.  
  
My feelings echoed into their bodies; a night of confusing sorrow was traced with ghosts of agitated kicking, as they protested my tears. Oh I do love Yoh, but I've always thought it was Hao kicking harder, as though he did not want his world disturbed, as if maybe he wanted to dissuade my pain. As if he knew we planned to kill him and his brother.  
  
The fancies of a silly mind at night.  
  
I never wanted to lose him, I wanted to keep him with me; I never told Mikihisa, kept it secret that I had nightmares about losing them, and wanted them to be mine. I didn't want Hao to be taken from me, I didn't want Yoh to be killed.   
  
And then he learned (how can I be proud of his knowing, even before birth, that we were to kill him?), and we were left with a son we did not expect to keep.   
  
It was difficult, knowing of Yoh's progress through letters and visits and familial love, and also knowing that shadow of a son gone. We knew he would return; I wondered if it was silliness, a weak emotion, that kept me longing to see the boy whose features mirrored Yoh, kept my arms feeling strangely empty with the want to hold him close when I never could.  
  
Hao is darkness, destined to continuously strive for his vile goals. I should not think of him as my son; I should not feel pride and love when I hear of him defeating his opponents; I should not accept that darkness as part of him. But it breaks my heart every time I clasp my hands into fists, trying to deny him as my child, and when I try to connect him to the family shame, to the apathy or hatred I should feel--  
  
I remember him when he was innocent, the one who moved and wriggled in my womb; he always made himself known, and I took it as comfort, feeling his gentle kicks under my palm lying curved over my belly. My baby, taken by his own destiny and the darkness; taken by the spirit he is as much a part of as it he, summoning it to save him, and it's chilling to think that I might have saved him myself, somehow, might have given my son to light.  
  
I make no sense at night.  
  
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Notes: I'd like to do a Hao perspective if he wasn't such a bootch to write.  
  
Feedback: Tell me what I need to work on! Or bloat my ego, either way. ^.-  
  
Disclaimer: All characters are the creations and property of Takei Hiroyuki. 


	2. Ties II

Continuity: Random point; references to volume 16 and general Hao-riffic stuff.  
  
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Ties: II  
  
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I remember her, without failing, even as I've only seen her once.  
  
How strange that it should be my third mother who would love me. That she would conspire to kill me and my brother while we readied to flush free of the warm protection of her womb, and to know as I did so that she still loved me. I had expected hate - I've always expected hate; it practically comes stitched to the entire megalomania thing - and was surprised to feel none, even as she planned to lead me to my early doom with her husband and parents.  
  
I am, by nature, an empath, and though I hate the constant knowing (the pressure and pettiness, without end and ever there) of others' emotions, I found some peculiar warmth in hers. She feared us - or rather, me - early in the pregnancy, revulsion as she knew her family's black sheep was reforming himself in her womb. And then, inexplicably, I began to feel love from her.  
  
Shame, as well, and it was even more perplexing to realize it was not shame of my being in her body, feeding from her nutrients, filling with her blood, but shame that she loved me. No regret, no hatred, and even as I took comfort in the completely self-contained twin beside me (like all those who have not lived before, he was not aware of the warmth, the tug and pull of growing life), I found greater pleasure in knowing this unexpected love; she sang softly and rubbed her hand over her belly, speaking with us in quiet tones when she was lonely and oftimes when she was not.  
  
She changed her plans, or at least wanted to change them (vanity insists she wanted *me*, but I digress); and in response, I changed mine. I could have asked the Spirit of Fire to burn her, as well, though it would have killed my brother. Mercy does not come often to me, and it is a rare attribute I care little for: extermination, as of pests, is my favored manner, and I was set to do so.  
  
I spared her. Perhaps I should have killed her, or at least done to her what I had done to that husband of hers, but I didn't. If I had, it might have cleaned the path to power, just a bit, ripples changing the matter of an entire family. I care for my twin, yes, but he is an unheralded nuisance: merciful, kind, completely soft. Though she is strong-willed, she is like him in many ways, as gentle-hearted inside as Yoh.  
  
And it is even stranger, for me, to understand I would not kill her now. It is weakness, I'm sure, but it revulses me somehow inside - as if the thought of killing her (if the chance should present itself, as it surely will eventually) is sickness. Odd, that I can butcher thousands and find it indescribably wrong to think so of her. I cannot explain why; I haven't felt deep affection for over a thousand years (not since my first mother, and...). The second, of the Patch, simply - well, I'm sure the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" has been repeated often enough, so I'll let that rest.  
  
But this third one, Keiko, meant just as a vehicle to grant me entrance to the world again - she cares, oddly enough. I know she follows my progress as she does Yoh's, and somehow I suspect it is not like her family's following is, that she follows because she still loves. Or perhaps I'm just egotistic, but I doubt that's the case in this particular instance.  
  
I've considered talking to her a handful of times. I want to know why she loves me, when she ought to have (by all logical reckoning) hated me. I *am* the Asakura family's downfall, the great plague that has spread now thrice, an evil and so forth until metaphors and recycled phrases of darkness have faded into senility. Every bit of knowledge and reason declares she should not care for me, much less I her, and yet (foolishly) it is so.  
  
So very strange.  
  
That I care about her, though I have not seen her except for that one time (and she was weeping; I thought from pain of the flesh, but I felt, deeply, the echoes of helpless - hopeless! - love), only came fully into the lgiht recently for me. I had known it, deep inside where I tuck all my rebounding emotions (the ones I cannot curtail and so, frustrated, shunt into hiding that I might ignore and forget their existence).  
  
I've hated for so long, and been hated, that love requited is exhaustibly weighty. I'm not used to it; I wonder if it will make me weak, this loving...  
  
And I don't understand why it is I wish to see her again.  
  
I have a longing at times, a strange, deeply rooted yearning, to see my mother again (Mother, first, most of all, but I feel drawn to Keiko, as well). I want her; not as a child crying for his mother's soothing comfort, and certainly not as a man desperate for a woman's touch, but as a boy who wishes to know he is well in his mother's eyes, even when he does wrong. This is most bemusing to me, the irrational longing for the tie to this third mortal existence.  
  
I am barely shy of immortality, able to reincarnate myself as I so wish again and again, and I want, desperately, to see this mother, a woman I know I should also feel (as I have before) apathy towards if not hate itself, for planning to slay me. And even as I love her, I love another, seeing my first mother born again...  
  
The gods, I think with little wonder, ought to be laughing quite loudly right now.  
  
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Notes: Urm, hope it wasn't too bad...and Hao, surprisingly, wasn't half as bitchy to write as I feared. This has me on edge. Additionally, what with the whole Anna complex recently shown in the manga, this is probably OOC too. Damnit. But remember - this is a Hao-about-Keiko fic, not...eh, I'll eat my spoilers now, don't worry. After I pull my foot out of my mouth.  
  
Feedback: Review and I shall dance for you - I will dance the FILTHY MONKEY DANCE. And you may laugh evilly.  
  
Disclaimer: Takei Hiroyuki, aka Kickass Man, owns all. I merely tapdance his beautifully crafted universe to ruins.   
  
Thanks:  
  
Fluffychans (I hope this is still good work...^^; And I'm writing too many vignettes...)  
  
Crimson Flame (And now I *have* done a Hao one! - That came out a bit more innuendo than I expected...)  
  
Shadow Seeker (*bows* My thanks!)  
  
Kage NoTenshi (I'm working on it, I am! ^^ Hope this was as good as you might've expected)  
  
Sweet Anime Fan (I know...the end of volume sixteen makes me feel deliciously saddened)  
  
Kaori (thanks thanks thanks!! ^_^) 


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